Eight intending pilgrims arrested

Eight intend­ing pilgri­ms are arrest­ed after drugs are found in their posses­sion.

PESHAWAR: Eight intending pilgrims were arrested on Saturday after drugs were found on their person just before the departure of their flight.

Two persons were arrested after officials of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) carried out a raid at the Haji Camp in Hayatabad in the morning.

Officials said that they tracked down six more people and detained them just before their flight (PIA’s PK 2037) took off for Saudi Arabia from the Peshawar airport.

Officials said that six of the suspects were from  Punjab; one from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and one belonged to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

Provincial chief of the ANF, Brig Ameer Mohammad Khan, said that they had received information about a bid to smuggle drugs, adding that the criminals intended using pilgrims as carriers.

Those taken into custody were taken to Lady Reading Hospital, where doctors confirmed the presence of heroin capsules inside their stomachs.

The suspects were given medicines to recover the heroin capsules, a doctor said, adding that they have been placed under judicial remand.

Hospital security in-charge Shah Zaman said the retrieval process of the drugs will take several hours after which the suspects will be cleared from the hospital.

Brig Khan said that they had recovered 50 capsules from the suspects so far.

“The [exact] quantity of the drugs will be known only after we have retrieved all capsules, which can take up to 24 hours,” he added.

The suspects were identified as Muhammad Ishaq and Tanvirul Hasan of Sheikhupura; Muhammad Saeed of Khoshab Punjab, Muhammad Riaz, Ghulam Muhammad and Khan Mir of Mianwali and Wajid Khan of Mardan; and Said Wali of Orakzai Agency.

Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi, while talking to a TV channel, said the arrested men were not innocent people deceived by drug smugglers, but were in fact professional criminals.

He said they were fortunate that they had been arrested in Pakistan. Otherwise, they would not only have brought a bad name to the country but could also have been executed, not to mention creating hardships for Pakistani pilgirims. The kingdom, he said, may have imposed a ban on pilgrims from Pakistan. (Additional input from Online)

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2010.